In the Biblical sense, mystery is not simply complicated and hard to figure out, like an intricate detective thriller, but refers to that which is hidden, not yet revealed, a secret. Thus, adapting to the mystery of life is an opportunity for sweet partnership and a growing faith with our Lord. Let me also point out that the leverage mystery might wield over us is not confined to hard circumstances alone. Adam and Eve were duped in a perfect garden of light. The serpent dangled mystery in front of the first humans, baiting them to believe that the secret and hidden things that God was protecting them from, were actually things that they was entitled to. The story is still playing out, is it not?
Peter, James and John witnessed the radiance of a transfigured Christ as he visited on a mountain top with Elijah and Moses. Mt. 17:1-4 I would tend to agree with Peter that this would be a good place to camp out for awhile, a long while. As they were coming down the mountain Jesus foretold his sufferings, that the Son of Man would be treated with contempt. Mt. 17:12 What a contrast! Unlike the things of man, the things of God are “death friendly”, and in the end they actually serve to protect our souls. “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death” is a beautiful, paradoxical, oftentimes turbulent, prayer. Phil.3:10
Knowing the power of resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, not in random separation but in a divine co-mingling, is an attribute of the Son of man that we are privileged to embrace, and requires adaptation to mystery. Click To TweetThe speed of our culture has slowed down our zeal to search out the secret things of God. Everything else is “on-demand” so why can’t it be that way in God? We’re expecting a fine quality wine from yesterday’s grapes!
The quest for a God-like heart, the longing to be like the One to whom darkness is as light, will produce a Gethsemane-like trust deep within. It is the cushion of mystery that comforts on the solitary Cross-walk. Our hearts are tenderized, mining for light in a shaft of darkness – a cumbersome, slowly rewarding process. But in the end, “light dawns in the darkness for the upright” and all things will be revealed, in His time. Ps. 112:4; Lk. 8:17
Mystery is the forerunner to revelation.
The desperate cry of our hearts for life to be explained and understood is usually not answered in the preferred manner. We are not meant of course, to discount the faculty of reason that God has blessed us with, but we don’t live by reason; we live by faith.
A favorite novelist of mine expressed it thusly: If it (an explanation) were given he would soon need a larger one, and a still larger one after that, until in the end no explanation would fill the yawning abyss of his doubt… Not-knowing was the way to ultimate union with the Love whose embrace was the filling of every doubt, the binding up of all wounds. ¹